


Remembered

by justdk



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Dreams, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 05:46:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13540989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justdk/pseuds/justdk
Summary: Ronan receives a dream vision of an old friend





	Remembered

Ronan Lynch dreamed of snow: great drifts of snow, forests blanketed with the heavy accumulation. He wandered through the winter dreamscape, the snow crunching beneath his boots. Above him the stars gleamed with sharp, icy clarity. From the depths of the forest came the haunting chime of bells, high and melodic. Ronan followed the sound into a small dell. Beneath the shelter of a gnarled old oak tree he found a strange plant – similar in shape and color to snowdrops – but instead of fragile white flowers there were silver bells, tiny and intricate.

A chill breeze blew by, setting the bells to ringing in earnest. It felt like a summons. Ronan bent down and ran his fingers over the dark stems and leaves of the plant, poking gently at the bells. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. He was being watched. He turned, slowly. Ronan knew that his dreams were populated and that not all of the residents were friendly.

There was a boy crouched in the shadowed eaves of the forest that surrounded the dell. His hands covered his face and he was rocking forward and backward as if he was crying, though he made no sound. For a brief moment Ronan thought _Adam?_ but then the boy lurched, shifted—he was a ragged skeleton, held together by faded ribbons of energy. _Noah_.

Ronan didn’t know if he said the name aloud or not. The boy – Noah – looked up. His face blurred, skeleton to flesh, flesh to skeleton. The bells were pealing.

“Noah.”

Ronan reached for him—

—and woke up.

For several moments the shock and sadness of the dream haunted him, holding him in place. Ronan felt cold tears on his face and he brushed them away, wondering why he was crying. He couldn’t remember. The bed was warm, toastier than usual now that Adam was home. Ronan couldn’t see him, it was too dark, but his body found Adam’s beneath the heavy weight of blankets and he curled around him before falling asleep.

He was back in the forest. He followed the tracks in the snow, the stumbling, uneven tread that climbed up the rising side of a hill. This new forest was still unfamiliar to Ronan; its landscape was forever unfolding and revealing itself. He felt like a stranger here, unacknowledged by the looming, dark trees. _The trees_. Ronan, and Adam, too, still had nightmares about the ruin of Cabeswater’s ancient, sentient trees.

At the top of the hill was a clearing and lying in the middle of the clearing was Noah. His eyes were open and he didn’t blink as flakes of snow fell on his face and into his eyes. He looked dead. He was dead. _Dead and gone_.

“Noah.”

Ronan stomped through the snow, deeper here, at least half a foot. The cold soaked through his jeans and into his boots. He finally reached Noah and stood over him, watching the flakes cover his smudgy friend.

“Why are you haunting me?” Ronan asked.

Noah’s mouth opened, moved. The words came out of him, but the voice was wrong. Like a ventriloquist speaking through a puppet. Like a demon possessing a body. Ronan shuddered.

“No one remembers me.”

A bitter wind ripped through the clearing, tossing flakes of snow into Ronan’s face. He blinked them away and when he opened his eyes Noah was standing in front of him, nose pressed nearly to his own.

“The fuck—” Ronan stumbled backwards, slipping in the snow. His backside hit the snow before his palms and he sank into the drift. Noah peered down at him. Ronan struggled to sit up and Noah took his hand. The instant their skin met Ronan felt a _pull_ , energy rushing from him into Noah. It was so cold that he thought his hand would freeze and crack and fall off his arm.

“Ahhh,” Noah sighed. He released Ronan and tipped his head back. His dead eyes flashed back into life, color brightening his cheeks. Ronan clutched his arms to his chest and shivered, teeth chattering. “This is what it feels like,” Noah said, his voice back to normal, “to be alive. I always forget.” He huffed out a breath and watched as the little cloud disappeared. “Just like that. I forget. You forget. You have all forgotten.”

It seemed impossible, now that he was looking at Noah, to believe that he didn’t spend every day missing his old friend and former housemate.

“Shit, man” Ronan said. In the dream he felt his armor falling away, and this was _Noah_ , who always knew the truth no matter how hard he tried to unknow it. “I’m really fucking sorry.” He shoved his cold hands under his armpits. “I don’t know how I could have forgotten about you.”

Noah stuck out his tongue to catch a falling snowflake. “I was never really there,” he said. “It was my energy and your energy and the ley line. How can you remember the man who wasn’t there?”

“Still.” Ronan remembered that awful day when they had discovered Noah’s red Mustang in Cabeswater. He remembered Noah carving  _Murdered_ over and over in the pollen and dirt. He remembered writing _Remembered_. “What can I do?”

“While I’m gone, dream me the world. Something new for every night.” Noah mimicked Gansey’s voice with eerie accuracy. “Look at my memories and dream what you see.” Ronan shook his head, not unwilling but skeptical of his ability to perform the task. “You’ll know what to take,” Noah said, moving closer. The snow swirled around them in gusts, whiting out the rest of the world. Noah pressed his cold, cold hands to Ronan’s face and leaned in until their foreheads met. The words flowed from mind to mind: _See. See? Look…_

The memories invaded Ronan’s mind, short video clips tinged in sepia. Here was Noah in the Dollar City shaking a snow globe. Here was Noah sprawled on Gansey’s bed, kissing Blue. Here was Noah in the backseat of Adam’s car, waving around Ronan’s mix tape. Here was Noah showing Gansey that silly toy Ronan had bought, metallic putty that swallowed magnets. And on and on and on. _There were so many memories_.

Ronan didn’t know he was crying until Noah’s thumbs were brushing his cheeks. Noah caught a single tear on the tip of his finger and licked at it, his expression curious. Ronan sniffed loudly and scrubbed at his face, his mind overwhelmed by the barrage of  _NoahNoahNoah_.

“Well?” Noah asked. “Will it be enough?”

“Yeah, man,” Ronan said, voice rough. He got down and stretched out on the snow, pretending it was warm and – because it was his dream – he was warm. “Will I see you again?”

Noah watched the flakes circle down from the sky, heavy clouds partly covering the full moon.

“Perhaps,” Noah whispered.

—–

Ronan felt exhausted when he woke. The night felt endless, drawing him into dreams and spitting him out. Maybe it was Noah…

The frission of remembrance took hold and Ronan’s mind raced with ideas. When he entered the dream again he knew exactly what he needed to bring back.

—–

The next morning Adam woke up to a room blanketed in snow, an unintended side effect of Ronan’s dreaming. The two of them and Opal started the day with a rousing snowball fight that devolved into panicked cleaning as the snow began to melt. As a consequence Adam and Ronan had to spend the following night on the couch in front of the fire, not that either of them minded.

—–

Ronan held onto the dream objects until Blue and Gansey came to visit them. There was a minor holiday so Adam had a break from school and Blue and Gansey were back – temporarily – while Henry did some modeling in L.A.

They gathered in the living room. Gansey, Blue, and Adam squished together on the couch, each of them talking excitedly about where they had been and what they had done. Gansey kept reaching around Blue to touch Adam’s shoulder or neck, Blue was leaning back against Gansey but one hand would come to rest on Adam’s knee. Adam, usually self-contained, touched the hands offered to him, smiling unselfconsciously and laughing. Ronan sat on the coffee table, the gifts next to him, and watched them, keeping his thoughts to himself.

At last they reached a quiet moment and Gansey turned to Ronan and said, “You’re being awfully quiet.”

“It’s loud enough with all you assholes shouting,” Ronan said. Blue made an affronted noise and flipped him off, Adam rolled his eyes, and Gansey shook his head and smiled.

Ronan stood and passed out the packages. He was never good at the giving part; he preferred to leave his gifts to be discovered and opened in private. But these presents weren’t just from him; they were from Noah, too.

“I had a dream,” Ronan started, “and in the dream I met an old friend, someone we all knew but had forgotten. He asked me to help you all remember him so I dreamed these things.”

Adam, Blue, and Gansey exchanged glances before looking to Ronan with shared expressions of confusion.

“I know it doesn’t make sense!” Ronan said. “Just open your damn presents.”

Gansey went first. He peeled back the rough brown paper and a keychain fell into his palm. Three plastic charms were attached: a dusty red Mustang, an Aglionby chest, and the ley line. Gansey made a noise like a choked off sob and touched each charm, his eyes brimming with tears.

Blue went next. Her present was also small, a set of glittery hair clips, each one decorated with a small embellishment. There were flowers, feathers, pizza slices, gelato cones, and the ley line. Blue closed her eyes and brought the clips up to her face, cupping them against her cheek.

Adam’s gift was a watch. It looked expensive and elegant, the type that would be worn by a rich Aglionby boy. Except that the numbers had been replaced by words: SQUASH ONE, SQUASH TWO, SQUASH THREE, written in tiny letters. The back of the watch was inscribed with the image of the ley line. Adam leaned over the watch and hid his face against his knees, his shoulders shaking.

Ronan’s gift was on the mantle above the fireplace. He picked it up and brought it to show the others. They watched as he shook the snow globe and made a storm of silver glitter fall on a miniature Monmouth Manufacturing, complete with a tiny BMW and Camaro in the lot outside, the ley line etched into the ground.

They all wiped away tears and looked at each other, the beginnings of smiles teasing their lips.

“Noah,” they said in unison.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this during this past summer and I wrote the first half and couldn’t figure out where to take the story. I was exploring the ideas of snow and dreams and Noah. Tonight is the Snow Moon and I felt like it was finally time to revisit this and finish it. It’s a weird little story and I’m not sure if it works. FYI: The gifts also possess some Noah essence to help trigger memories; their practical uses ensures that each member of the original Gangsey will keep the memory of Noah fresh. Henry, sadly, doesn’t have much interaction with Noah in canon so that is why he was left out of this particular story. However, I do love the idea of Henry and Noah being better friends.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @dkafterdark


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